More than 8,000 polling stations opened across the
northeastern region at 9 a.m. local time today to select 135
lawmakers who will decide whether to press on with regional
President Artur Mas’s plan for a referendum on independence.
Voting ends at 8 p.m. with exit polls expected soon afterward.
The first results may be announced as early as 8:30 p.m.

Catalans are set to hand nationalist parties a majority in
the regional parliament, putting them on a collision course with
Rajoy’s national government in Madrid, which has held that a
referendum on secession would be unconstitutional. Mas was on
track to claim 62 seats and the separatist Catalan Republican
Left another 18, according to a Metroscopia poll published Nov.
18 before the pre-election blackout period.

“The Catalan government is likely to push for a legal
referendum to be held within the next two years,” Antonio
Barroso, a political analyst at Eurasia in London and a former
Spanish government pollster, said in a Nov. 20 research note.
Mas “cannot backtrack once he is re-elected,” he said.

From windows and balconies around the regional capital of
Barcelona, nationalist supporters hung the flag of Catalan
independence while tourists at the stalls along the main
boulevard, Las Ramblas, bought canaries and guinea pigs as well
as shirts of the city’s iconic soccer club.

Constitutional Crisis

Mas’s ambition poses a constitutional crisis for Rajoy,
who’s battling to keep a grip on the country as European
officials urge him to cede control in return for bailout funds
he needs to bring down borrowing costs. Scottish nationalists,
who plan their own independence vote, are monitoring the Catalan
result.

“These elections are important not just for the next four
years, but for future generations of Catalans,” Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, regional leader of Rajoy’s People’s Party, said in an
e-mailed statement. “This is the moment to show the Catalan
people act and participate with common sense, with sensitivity
and responsibility.”

The 7.5 million Catalans make up 16 percent of the Spanish
population and last year accounted for 19 percent of the
country’s economic output, the most of any region. Madrid is the
second-biggest regional economy, with 18 percent of national
output. Catalonia is the country’s most-indebted region, with
total borrowing of 48.5 billion euros ($63 billion). Moody’s
Investors Service cut its credit rating to junk on Aug. 31.

Debt Crisis

The fallout from Europe’s debt crisis has shut Catalonia
out of financial markets, making it more dependent on the
central government, while at the same time fueling the campaign
to break away. Mas was forced to ask Rajoy for a 5 billion-euro
lifeline to pay operating expenses.

Mas has blamed tax transfers to the rest of Spain for the
area’s financial woes and has pushed for independent tax
collection. The region transfers 15 billion euros, or 8 percent
of its economic output, to the rest of Spain, the regional
government says.

‘More Money’

“Everything that means that Catalonia gets to bring in
more money and to keep more money is a good thing,” said Miguel
Manzano, 46, selling traditional products at a stall in the
center of Barcelona. He said he’d voted earlier today and
declined to say who for.

Rajoy says he’ll block any referendum Mas proposes. Foreign
Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said it would be tantamount
to a coup.

“I won’t abandon it,” Mas said in a Nov. 19 radio
interview. If there’s a majority of pro-independence lawmakers
from his party and others in the regional assembly, “it would
be fraud” to ditch the planned vote.

Seats in the regional assembly will be determined by a
system of proportional votes with the province of Barcelona
choosing 85 lawmakers and the rest distributed between Girona,
Lleida and Tarragona. Parties need to win at least 3 percent of
the votes in a province to be allocated seats.